Wisps
by Panda musume
Summary: An ordinary day. A contemplative day. A cold day in January. Rated T/mentions of Mello/spoilers for Matt's real name


A/N: Oneshot is up!

I swear, Death Note is my guilty pleasure right now.

This is just an experimental fic, y'know, so I can adapt to writing about the characters in Death Note and oh my god, their lovely characters. So you guys can interpret this any way you want lolz.

Alright, if I screwed up on Matt, feel free to flame me to death xD

If you guys think I made a mistake somewhere, feel free to review or pm me about it.

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN DEATH NOTE

Enjoy~

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Wisps

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It is a cold day in January, and Matt attempts to warm himself with a cigarette.

He's not even five minutes into his thoughts once he realizes how much he can't feel his fingers anymore as they weave through his pocket in search of a cigarette, and he swears a slew of words in his mind because his mouth is too busy craving for a white stick right now. Fuck.

A wonderful start, he thinks—and so begins another day in Matt's life; perfectly plain and porous with the crisp air that can be cut with his stolen knife and the sounds that resonates through the air like bell chimes, save for the fact that he is completely incapable of scrounging up one measly cigarette; and the fact that if he doesn't get back soon, Mello will be pissed.

But there is no more room for those thoughts as the cold is numbing his mind down as well as his goggles. Soon, his mind closes its shutters and goes hazy with clear mist, and then there's those thousands of possibilities lingering in the wisps of his breath; of questions to be asked, of answers to be called upon, of truths to become earth-shattering reality, of names to be revealed and_ goddammit where is that cigarette?_

His fingers fumble in his pocket for a moment before producing a pure, slick stick. A little dusty, but untainted and unused, and that's what matters in the end anyway; and pretty soon the lighter is already in his hands and the rest is history. The thing dangling from his mouth is the very definition of an unhealthy addiction at the tender age of nineteen—oh well, screw that. There's not a single damn given about unhealthy nineteen-year-olds who smoke and play gangster anyway. Not with all the heart-attacks and God-complexes going around.

Inhale, inhale again, exhale. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat.

Matt feels the tips of his fingers start to regain some of their feel, and he uses this to his advantage by pressing his hands together hard and rubbing them until he feels the friction and the weight and the heat become a little bit of this and a little bit of that, and then nothing.

He shoves his hands back into his pockets. The cigarette ashes are falling down into the snow; swirling, swirling with the white until it's an ugly color of grey that Matt can oddly relate to. Because it's the color of ashen soot, of dying stars, of bitter agony, of forgotten things—all mixed in with downright fear and mind-gnawing greys and pretty much every damn thing Matt thinks he did in his life. But that's not really important right now because those are only a collective patchwork of somethings and maybes and probably even a certainly.

So intent on his release, so intent on salvaging the last few minutes of wispy freedom left, Matt sits back and lets his mind wander; lets the nicotine have a go and give him the glorious high he's been waiting for as he trespasses through Alice's doorways; down the mazes of misconceptions and hazy memories and grey, grey, grey. He thinks about all sorts of them, the greys; all sorts of in-betweens and little cracks in the walls coupled with the fact that he is still fucking freezing.

His hands are numb.

He thinks about lots of things on his way down the rabbit hole. The little in-betweens; memories of his time at Wammy's, the time where they celebrated Mello's birthday with expired pizza and an old chess board, the smells of the last time he was in a warm bed and didn't need to hide a gun under his pillow, the little somethings and everythings that eventually ends up becoming a road down memory lane, centering around a shitty, condensed version of his life. And how the hell he gets there—he doesn't even know himself—but he always ends up circling around and manages to fit Mello back into the picture.

Matt lets out a small breath of laughter, an apparition of resonating bell chimes and grey smoke.

But really, it's not that opaque at all. It's just the smoke, he tells himself. And after a moment, he doesn't stop to hesitate at all once he puts the period down and thinks that it is worth thinking about Mello in the last few minutes between the snow and the cigarette ashes. Because Mello is worth being labeled as a person necessary in Matt's life. Because Mello is _something_. Mello is—different. So much more different than the stone of Mail Jeevas; Mello is something else. Mello is a ball of rage; an anomaly filled with chocolate and leather chains and this stubborn desire to prove himself in front of everyone and everything. A tarnished diamond in the rough; a raging inferno with so many more explosions to go before it even starts to dim. Mello has the brightness of the sun and the fire of a phoenix, and he is all of the things Matt isn't—

For a solid two seconds, Matt berates himself over his stupidity and thinks that the cigarette and the freezing cold have gone to his head. Because even if Mello is a blazing inferno and capable of burning his way through life with all the rage and anger and hatred the world has to offer him, Mello is also a kid who has dug himself too deep in the dirty muck surrounding them, and the wholesome truth of literal proof and evidence is the very fact that defines the desire that he wants to be number one.

But the fact that Mello never bothered to dig himself out; after so many loopholes, so many chances, so many possibilities; he is stubbornly stuck as everyone walks past without looking so much as a glance back, and Matt supposes that curiosity is one of the things that motivated him to follow him, or stay behind.

Although, Matt never gave it that much thought as to why he followed Mello in the first place. The feeling was just. . .there. The feeling. Starting with just a feeling that left him in the middle of sleeping in dirty mattresses and guns. Right when he met Mello and started taggin along with him, he thought, _this was it. This _was it_. _This was the beginning of a something, an ending of something else, and all Matt had to do was stay on a side and watch everything play out on the old chessboard.

Inhale, exhale, rinse and repeat.

Matt's smart. He knows it. He knows that his brain is filled with excessive knowledge that would not be comprehendible to other people—but furthermore, Matt knows he's not as smart as Mello or Near, because he's the sidekick. Matt believes himself to be the side-character that watches as the story spins out into a burst of explosions and dazzling colors of yellow and white and maybe some leather jackets and blue pajama pants, but that's it. The grand event. The epitome of the show—and then cut. And for Matt, he wants a quiet ending. In the future, where side-kicks will also have their spin-off stories, he wants to pitch in his vote and add a comfortable apartment, surrounded by empty pizza boxes and video games, the smell of smoke and ashes, a fluffy pillow and a warm blanket, and perhaps a Mello.

But Matt is not stupid, and he is sure as hell that that ending will just be another fairytale added to the list of things he won't get to have, but that's okay too. He's gotten used to the stench of death and having to sleep with a gun under his pillow, and where Mello goes, he will follow. Like a wisp; flying, following as an unnoticed apparition while the sun demands attention for all to remember, and that's when Matt knows that he won't be remembered. Nineteen years old, no girlfriend, a wanted man, a smoking addict, and a computer genius. But Matt's fine with that right now because he'd rather have that than not meet with Mello at all. Because he_ knows_ from so many moments in time that Mello is a person that you meet once in your life, and he will stay, burned into your memory until he becomes a story that is told and changed and stubbornly unforgotten. And really, Mello is extraordinary. Even though his words sear and the reality sinks in once you meet him, the experience is_ real_; because there is a sudden rawness of colors and you won't know what to believe in anymore—

And now he's letting his mind think way too deep.

Matt lets loose a shaky breath, watching it waft and wave like some other person that isn't him, and then it disappears; a compilation of wispy smokes of grey and the residues of ashes in the snow as he checks the time on his watch and swears.

No more time for another pack of cigarettes. No more time for deep thoughts.

It is still cold outside as people trudge through mountains of snow and ice. Matt is still fucking freezing as he plucks the cigarette from his mouth and lets it lightly drop to the ground. The snow does the work for him, but he steps on it anyway. Some sick sense of obligation, probably, but either way it's probably some stupid reason that he wants to put the flames out himself.

He is still greedily savoring the flavor of nicotine as the urge comes into the form of digging into his ruddy pants for some form of money for another pack, but the feel of copper or something that resembles steel doesn't come.

But before he can wallow in disappointment over the cold and the nicotine and everything else, Matt thinks about Mello and how pissed he's gonna be when Matt gets back. So Matt puts his big-boy pants back on and trudges through the snow—unnoticed, unremembered, forgotten; a vague visual of a boy who was once smoking near a lamppost and didn't give a damn about the world—he still doesn't.

The wisps of the cigarette are imprinted on the snow and are slowly piling in all of its ashen glory, and Matt gives one last look to whatever is behind him before mechanically moving his legs and cursing at how cold it is.

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A/N: So. . . .yea. Sorry if this isn't what you guys expected, but I just thought that on a casual day, Matt deserves some attention since the world of anime and manga barely gave him five minutes/ten panels of screen time. . .lolz

Anyways, critiques are greatly appreciated, &amp; I hope you guys liked the story somewhat ^^

Til next story~


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